menca

From Proto-Baltic*menkyā-, from Proto-Indo-European*menk- ‎(“to knead, to crush”) (> “to weaken, to make small, low-valued”); the full en remained in Kurzeme dialects (compare, from the same stem, mīksts ‎(“soft”), mīcīt ‎(“to knead”), where en > ī), from which it spread to other dialects. The semantic development suggests that this fish was seen as unimportant or low-valued. Cognates include Lithuanianménkė, dialectal menkia; the same stem is also found in Lithuanianmeñkas ‎(“minor, small, unimportant, weak”).[1]